1. Field of Invention
In general, the inventive arrangements relate to medical imaging systems, and more specifically, to combining medical imaging systems, such as, for example, providing an ultrasound docking port on a non-ultrasound medical imaging system.
2. Description of Related Art
For illustrative, exemplary, representative, and non-limiting purposes, preferred embodiments of the inventive arrangements will be described in terms of medical imaging systems. For example, common medical imaging systems include medical equipment for radiology, functional imaging, molecular imaging, vascular imaging, fluoroscopy, angiography, mammography, neurology, oncology, radio pharmacology, x-ray, nuclear medicine (NM), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), computed tomography (CT), ultrasound, and/or the like. However, the inventive arrangements are not limited in these regards.
Now then, in multi-modality medical imaging systems, various imaging techniques can be combined to acquire patient images. For example, in a PET/CT imaging system, imaging from both modalities can be combined to enhance patient imagery. While one such system can capture functional imagery, the other can capture anatomical imagery, with each enhancing and/or complementing the other. However, most medical imaging systems are not well-equipped to readily accommodate additional modality imaging systems, and successful fusion thereof remains desirable—e.g., progress has been made in image registration between modalities, but little less.
Thus, continued progress remains desirable for combining many attributes of multi-modality medical imaging systems. For example, it remains desirable to provide many medical imaging systems with a convenient ultrasound docking port, particularly as ultrasound equipment and/or systems become more portable, ubiquitous, useful, and/or practical, as a desirable add-in to numerous other imaging modality applications.